It's hard to imagine that a single human being believes GOP Congressman Darrell Issa deserves to be taken seriously:
[T]here they are -- North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's Fidel Castro -- pictured as symbols against legislation that would allow federal employees four weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child.
But this YouTube tactic by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) didn't work. Despite his imaginative video, the House passed the measure yesterday, 258 to 154.
Issa uses the photos of Sam's rivals to counter statements by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chief sponsor of the bill, who is shown on the video saying that almost every country provides paid parental leave. Her bill is necessary, she argues, to move the United States from "the worst in the world up with the other progressive family-friendly-oriented countries."
Words on the screen then ask: "Could these guys be wrong on paid parental leave?" followed by photos of North Korea's "Dear Leader" and the others.
Perhaps Issa would feel more comfortable keeping the United States in the company of Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea, the only nations that do not guarantee some form of paid parental leave, according to a report by researchers at McGill and Harvard universities.
Apparently Darrel Issa thinks that if a government he doesn't like has a particular social policy, our policy should be the opposite. Therefore, if North Korea has a law against pedophilia, using Issa's "reasoning," I guess he'd say that we should legalize it. If Iran doesn't permit their old and feeble to be banished to a lonely hillside to die a solitary and excruciating death, I guess he thinks we should. And Cuba provides public education, so I guess he'll be introducing legislation mandating illiteracy.
If one were to make a video montage of the biggest buffoons in Congress, Darrell Issa would have a starring role.